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As the familiar chime of the silver bell above the front door rang out, Colin glanced up from his place behind the counter, setting down the antiquated pricing gun he’d been fiddling with that his stubborn godmother still insisted upon using.
“Welcome in!” he greeted the new customers warmly, forcing as polite a smile as he could onto his face as the two girls who appeared to be his little brother’s age stared back at him agape. “Can I help you find anything?”
“No!” one of them blurted out, turning and whispering something to her friend that had both of them collapsing into a fit of giggles before they ran off. Colin ignored the amused snort that sounded beside him—-he already knew what his friend would say if he engaged—as he watched the girls go straight for the large display of Jane Austen’s novels Colin and Penelope had finished putting together just last night. It had been Aggie’s idea, of course, as she wanted to capitalize on the upcoming Pride and Prejudice adaptation; she’d be pleased to know it was already working as they were far from the first customers of the day to do so. One person was not so pleased, however, and he only had time to count to three in his head before the exasperated sigh he had quickly learned to expect slipped from the lips of the endearingly agitated redhead next to him.
His grin became much more real then as he leaned against the counter and waited for her to give him back her attention, more than content for the time being to watch her incessantly click her pen as she glared at the apparently offensive display holding the books most dear to her.
“I can feel you staring at me,” she grumbled as she spun back around to face him, batting his hand away as he reached out to twirl one of her fiery curls around his finger. Colin bit back his laughter and settled for tapping her on the nose with a finger instead, savoring the sight of the adorable way she scrunched it up as she narrowed her baby blues at him.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re cute when you’re annoyed? Like one of those little yapping chihuahuas who thinks it's much scarier than it is.”
“You did not just compare me to a chihuahua!” Penelope squeaked, crossing her arms over her chest in an apparent attempt to look menacing. Unfortunately for her, she only managed to prove Colin’s point—there simply wasn’t much that could be scary about his tiny coworker, who had to tip her chin all the way back in order to glare at him as she so desired.
“I also called you cute, so I feel like that should count for something,” he teased, cocking his head as he wrapped one of the perfect auburn ringlets that framed her face around his finger and grinning when she didn’t stop him this time. He could see her fighting back a smile even as she rolled her eyes, counting it as a win as he lightly tugged on the curl, releasing it so that he could watch it bounce back into place. “Talk to me, Pen.”
“You’re going to think I’m being silly,” she sighed.
“Try me,” he offered, wondering if his friend might finally share what had been bothering her all day. In the four years that Colin had worked with Penelope at Danbury Books, he had never seen her so disgruntled, but it was especially confusing when her annoyance seemed to be directed at her favorite author for reasons he could not fathom.
“Ughhh,” she groaned, throwing her head back before meeting his gaze again. “Fine…okay, just remember that I know I’m being dramatic. Promise?”
“Pinky,” he said as he held out his little finger for her to link with her own, trying not to laugh at the comically large difference between the two as she did just that. A tingling sensation lingered in his finger and traveled up his arm even after their hands swung back down to their sides, something Colin tried his best to ignore in favor of listening to Pen as she launched into a rant of epic proportions. He couldn’t be sure he was following everything, though he caught phrases.
“Mr. Bennet cannot be hotter than Mr. Darcy; it just isn’t right, Colin!”
“At least I know Olivia Colman will be perfect—she always is.”
“I swear to god, if they come out with a tie-in cover for this show, I will refuse to sell it. Agatha will never win that fight.”
Completely entranced by his friend’s passion for something he didn’t really understand, Colin had no idea how much time had passed when she finally ran out of words, left breathless with perfectly rosy cheeks—whether from her frustration or her embarrassment, he couldn’t be sure; it was beautiful either way. Placing one hand on each of her shoulders and letting his forehead fall to hers for a moment, he took a deep breath and smiled when Penelope followed his lead.
“None of that made any sense to you, did it?” she asked, worrying her plush bottom lip between her teeth; the sudden urge he felt to free it with his thumb had him dropping his hands and backing up a step, swallowing roughly around a feeling he didn’t have time to unpack.
“Well…no,” he admitted, noticing the way her face fell and hurriedly adding, “but that’s only because I’ve never been properly educated. I’ve never read, or even seen, any Austen before.”
Colin worried that was the wrong thing to say as Pen’s mouth dropped open, her bright blue eyes as wide as saucers as she stared up at him, aghast.
“Pen…?” he prompted, shifting his weight as his fingers rubbed against each other.
After a moment, she shook her head as a broad smile slowly overtook her initial look of shock. “Colin, do you know what this means?”
“Um, no?”
Penelope’s giggle enveloped them behind the counter; it was a sound he always wanted more of. “What are you doing after work?”
“What I always do,” he shrugged. “Ordering takeout as I attempt to force myself through my writer’s block only to–”
“Inevitably give up and watch Love Island instead,” Pen finished for him, laughing as he poked her in the side, not bothering to deny it when she wouldn’t believe him anyway. “Can I propose an alternative?”
At the sight of her shimmering blue pools shining up at him from behind her golden-rimmed glasses, her freckle-covered cheeks still stained with the sweetest blush, and her gleeful grin stretched wide across her pretty face, Colin was fairly certain she could suggest jumping off a cliff into the icy-cold waters of Lake Michigan and he would still say yes. Unwilling to follow that particular train of thought at the moment, he simply grinned back at her and asked, “What did you have in mind?”
—
Though he had already been scolded for not paying attention multiple times tonight, Colin couldn’t stop his gaze from wandering back to the redhead snuggled up on the couch beside him. Their once-heaping plates of Thai food were long-abandoned on her coffee table—he had finished hers when she’d complained of being too full for another bite—and the chatter of the Bennet sisters and their mother filled her cozy living room, which felt much smaller at the moment for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.
He had been to Penelope’s apartment plenty of times over the years that they’d known each other; however, he’d always been accompanied by his younger sister Eloise, who also happened to be Pen’s best friend, and on occasion, Eloise’s boyfriend—and his own best friend—Phil. He had thought their absence this evening would have made the small room feel more spacious, but it seemed to be having the opposite effect, leaving him more aware of his friend than ever before.
That wasn’t a particularly fair assessment, actually. Colin had always been aware of Penelope—perhaps too aware, as he was discovering tonight.
She was his friend—as he kept reminding himself—and had been since the moment they’d met. He could still remember it vividly, and thought he always would. How could he forget being knocked to his ass in front of the prettiest girl he’d ever seen—or, rather, by the prettiest girl he’d ever seen? He’d been working his final shift for the summer at Danbury Books, preparing to head back to college for his junior year, and he had never seen her coming. His godmother had found it so funny that she’d hired Pen basically on the spot after learning that she’d stopped in to apply, having just moved to town to attend the local liberal arts college. By the time Eloise had arrived for her shift later that day so that he could go home and finish packing, he had been sure his sister and his new friend would hit it off and had found himself already looking forward to the next time he’d be home.
That had been nearly four years ago.
Four years of holiday shifts that he jumped at the chance to cover, knowing Penelope rarely seemed to go back home to visit her family, working and staying in her little apartment instead—until Eloise and Colin inevitably showed up and dragged her to their own family’s celebrations.
Three summers of long days at the bookstore, ending the nights down at the beach or strolling the boardwalk filled with the vacationers who kept Aggie’s store running all these years, only for Colin to have to say goodbye all over again at the end of each one, leaving him devastated for reasons he was just now—at the beginning of their fourth summer, the one that he hoped would never end—starting to comprehend.
He had come back home after grad school to write, working at the bookstore during the days and spending his nights writing his first novel. Or at least, that was what he had told his family, his godmother, and his favorite coworker. Hell, that was what he’d told himself.
As it turned out, though, Colin was a liar. Because the real reason he’d come home was sitting next to him, turning to look at him with those dancing baby blues that took his breath away. She reached out and cupped his cheek with her small palm, her thumb stroking just once over his jaw as she applied the slightest pressure to direct his eyes back to her favorite movie.
“You’re supposed to be watching, Colin,” she giggled and dropped her hand back to the cushion beside his, seemingly unaware of his pounding heart and the fact that it seemed to be beating for her and her alone.
He was mourning the loss of her touch, wondering if there was any way he could get it back and doing his best to pay attention as Mr. Darcy helped Elizabeth into the waiting carriage, when he got exactly what he wished for. Just as the stoic man’s fingers flexed in response to having touched the woman he was so obviously in love with, Penelope’s hand found Colin’s as she squealed in delight. He waited on bated breath for her to let go again, but instead she laced their fingers together and pulled his hand to her lap, leaving it there for the rest of the movie.
It was just enough time for Colin to decide that he rather liked Jane Austen.
Turning to her when it was over, he used his free hand to tuck an unruly curl behind her ear, brushing his thumb over the blush that had painted her skin as her plush lips turned up in a soft smile.
“So,” she began as she absently played with his fingers in her lap, “what did you think?”
“I loved it,” he answered honestly, his heart skipping a beat as her entire face brightened.
“Really?”
“Really, Pen,” he said with a nod. “Which one do we watch next?”
“Which one do we watch next?”
Well, how obvious did she want to be?
Penelope Featherington had never considered herself to be a particularly subtle person. Shy? Sure. Soft spoken in mixed company? Absolutely. Awkward, given the right circumstances? It was practically her middle name.
But subtle she was not.
If she was surprised by a stranger’s unexpected attention toward her, it was painted across her face. If her mother made an off-color comment, she made her annoyance known with a scrunched nose and pointed eye roll. If Colin Bridgerton did anything remotely charming—including, but not limited to breathing, talking, shelving books, sharing stories of his travels, looking in her general direction, or merely existing—Penelope was sure literal stars formed in her pale blue irises.
So her suggestion regarding what to watch next would be a test of her subtlety. If she suggested a more innocuous movie like Sense & Sensibility, she could simply say it was a story of sisterhood, chock-full of iconic British talent and Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning work. But if she suggested Emma, she was emphasizing friends to lovers. And Colin Bridgerton was a smart man, surely he would see the obvious parallels between Mr. Knightly and himself. Penelope saw virtually no parallels between herself and Emma, but they were both family friends and he was older than her and-
Well, it was just obvious.
But was it too obvious? She could still feel where his fingers had grazed her temple and their hands interlaced, and he had looked down at her like he was seeing something new within her, or about her, or that he-
She could scarcely consider it.
Colin as a romantic prospect had always been nothing more than a fanciful daydream. When Penelope read romance novels on her breaks at the bookstore or at home in the cover of night, he was perpetually cast as the romantic lead in her head. He was a secret hope that fueled her fantasies, but never brought into the light.
Colin as a dear friend, on the other hand, had been a bright constant in her life. When she had started at Danbury Books during her first year of college and Eloise and Colin decided she would be their friend, she had waited for the day that he would drop her and his younger sister for cooler, older people he met at graduate school. Instead, he clung to her even harder as time went on. They whispered inside jokes while they passed each other in the aisle, left quotes from the books they read together for each other in the cash register, and waited for the other to finish their shift so they could leave together. He was a true friend who stuck by her side.
She had never allowed herself to broach the topic of her feelings with him. How could she risk it? Before tonight, Colin had never given her any indication that he saw her as anything more than a friend. And she had been perfectly fine with that—really, it was completely fine, just as long as nobody asked her about it.
But tonight, when he asked her what was next, she couldn’t help but think he was asking more than what movie it would be.
What was next for them?
She could be brave; she could be unsubtle.
“What about Emma?”
He stared down at her blankly, blinking slowly. “Who?”
Penelope shook her head, “Oh, sorry. The movie is called Emma.”
“Got it. What’s it about?”
She steeled herself, bracing the consequences of her transparency. “It’s a friends to lovers story between a young woman named Emma and her family friend Mr. Knightley. She’s trying to set her friend Harriet up for society and it becomes a whole mess.”
He paused for a moment, and she thought that maybe he would understand her obvious hint and- “Cool!”
Oh.
Okay.
Colin’s sapphire blue eyes sparkled with interest, not intrigue. “I’m free tomorrow night. Does that work for you?”
“Yeah.” She gave a half-smile to cover up the plummeting defeat and disappointment in her chest. “I’ll have the popcorn ready.”
—
As they continued Colin’s education, Penelope tried to quash the hope that had bloomed within her. He had made no overt moves or outward displays; if it were anyone else, she wouldn’t have thought their behavior changed at all. But it wasn’t just anyone else, it was Colin, and she knew him—she might have even known him better than herself. She noticed how his eyes lingered on her for a beat longer than before, how his fingers grazed her own when they shelved books side by side, how his usual joking tone dissipated when he said goodbye for the day. If Colin were a regency hero and she the plucky Austen heroine, then perhaps she could believe these infinitesimal changes could mean something.
And how could she ignore him? How could she crush that traitorous feather of hope?
“Do you think it’s true?” Colin asked a few days after they watched Emma. They had been organizing the display tables at the front of the store before opening in relative silence. Penelope was still nursing her morning coffee, and he knew her well enough to wait until she had mostly finished before engaging her in some philosophical or existential conversation. Her heart had taken to thrumming wildly in his presence again like it had when they had met nearly four years ago. Just as she had learned to quell it, his recent behavior had undone all of her progress.
She looked up from the romantasy table she had been working on and tilted her head in confusion. “Is what true?”
“That the more you love someone, the less you’re able to articulate it.” Colin pointed to a nearby copy of Emma, displayed next to Pride & Prejudice. “I keep thinking about what Mr. Knightley said and I wonder if that’s true. There are all these famous plays and movies and musicals with big, over the top love confessions—and don’t get me wrong, I have often thought about declaring love in such an emphatic way—but what if Mr. Knightley was right? That you can make all these plans for a beautiful declaration, but in the end, you’re full of such love you can’t articulate?”
Penelope swallowed hard and stared up at him, the book display and box by her feet long forgotten. “You’ve thought about a love confession like that before?”
He flashed her a charming, bashful smile. “Yeah. I have.”
“Oh, well I suppose it all depends on the person you’re confessing to - and who you are.” She took a step towards him, wringing her hands together. “I mean, narratively of course, Emma had spent her whole life hearing flowery confessions and compliments from everyone in her life, and Mr. Knightley was the only one who spoke to her straight. He wouldn’t have been able to confess in such dramatic ways because that wasn’t the relationship they had. He could only be himself.”
Colin placed the book in his hand on the display and drew closer into her space. His presence was always all-consuming, but these days he was no longer a ray of fortifying light in her life—he was the whole sun.
“It’s kind of like how Mr. Darcy’s second proposal required him to show humility and honesty because his first proposal was so proud and insulting. Elizabeth needed to see that he had changed from the aloof man she had first met into someone who could tell her how he really felt.”
She knew that Colin was more contemplative than people gave him credit for, but she still found herself surprised by how deeply he was considering these characters she held so closely to her heart.
“But,” he continued. “I do wish we as an audience had the chance to see some of the walks they went on before he proposed. I think that was missing from the movie.”
Her gaze flitted to the Austen display. “For the record, I agree with you. But when did you have time to read the book? We only watched the movie a week ago.”
Colin's lips quirked up into a teasing, crooked grin. “Well, I am very fond of walking.”
Penelope’s eyes narrowed in mock seriousness as she fought to suppress a giggle and her rising blush. “Did you read it while walking through a cornfield off I-75 as the sun rose behind you?”
As he opened his mouth to answer, and before Penelope could think about his almost flirtatious tone any longer, Mrs. Danbury called for her from the back of the store. “Miss Featherington, I require some assistance!”
“I’ll finish up here,” Colin offered as he gestured toward Mrs. Danbury’s office. “Go on, it’ll give me time to keep reading Emma.”
She sighed, “Now when did you have time to start -”
“Miss Featherington!”
Penelope rolled her eyes and hurried back to her boss, tripping over the discarded box of books in her rush.
Just like a true rom-com heroine, except without the Nora Ephron charm and early 90s soundtrack—so, not really feeling like one at all.
—
Over the next couple of weeks, Penelope’s days spent with Colin at the bookstore grew more and more befuddling. She was properly befuddled. Colin’s behavior continued as it had, but to a few degrees higher. His notes left in the cash register had taken on a particularly Austenesque tone - “If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.” Except, Colin had crossed out ‘his’ and scratched in ‘her’ instead. His conversations with customers, specifically with those loitering around the Austen display, had gone from a casual recommendation to detailed discussions on the strengths and weaknesses of each book—along with his ardent view that Northanger Abbey was a misunderstood, elegant satire of the gothic genre. His ever-growing list of Austen adaptations he discovered and wanted to watch with her.
“I mean, it recontextualizes Clueless completely when you understand the source material,” Colin exclaimed while they walked to their cars after closing up the shop one night. “Don’t get me wrong, I really liked the movie growing up, but rewatching it with you and knowing it’s a take on Emma made it feel as though I was watching it for the first time.”
“Have you heard the theory that Twilight is actually a take on Pride & Prejudice? We might have to add it to the list,” Penelope teased.
“No,” he said, fervently. “I have flashbacks from Daph’s Twi-hard phase. She made me watch it about twenty times in six months. And if it is a Pride & Prejudice adaptation…not all adaptations are created equally, Pen.”
“Well, one we absolutely have to watch is Bride & Prejudice, a Bollywood musical adaptation from the early 2000s with that guy from Lost as the Mr. Bingley character. It’s incredible. My sisters hated joy growing up, so they would never watch it with me.”
Colin threw his head back and barked out a laugh. Penelope valued her friendship with the Bridgerton siblings and therefore never introduced them to her sour-faced sisters, but he had heard stories of their acerbic personabilities.
“That sounds fantastic, Pen.” He sidled up next to her and awareness flooded her system instantly. “We’ll do a double-feature adaptation night, Bride & Prejudice and Bridget Jones’ Diary.”
Penelope pulled her oversized cardigan tighter around her and tried to quell the butterflies that had taken flight in her stomach. “I would love that,” she whispered, more to herself than him.
“I like you very much, just as you are,” Colin muttered.
She peered up at him, the fluttering in her stomach intensified ten fold as she tried to play it off. “Spoilers!”
Penelope had expected him to laugh it off, but instead, he seemed far away. The early summer night air drifted past with a chilly undercurrent as she leaned against the driver’s side of her 2007 Toyota Corolla. Colin had started in on a topic, and she knew better than to try and cut him off—not that she would ever want to. She loved how passionate he was, how deeply he explored his interests as well as the interests of those he cared about; she considered herself incredibly lucky to be one of the few he earnestly let in. She loved how seriously he took her, how seriously he took her love of romance books, even if she didn’t really understand why he had so completely dived into it. She had expected him to watch the movies with her; she hadn’t expected him to become a full-blown Austen disciple.
“I knew you would like them, Col,” she continued, with a slight nudge. A thrill ran up her arm where her elbow tapped his ribs, a familiar thrill that electrified her senses whenever they touched. “I mean, that’s what makes her work so enduring—you can retell these stories over and over again and throw the characters into different contexts and it will still work because ultimately,” Penelope paused and stared at the pavement, whispering, “love stories are human stories. To love is to be human.”
“That’s beautiful, Pen.”
She stuffed her hands in her pockets and shrugged, still tracing the lines in the parking lot with her eyes. The orange setting sun cast their quiet small town main street in a gilded light, promising a coming starry, cloudless night, while Penelope knew it meant another night alone in her apartment, staring at the ceiling, wondering why she still clung to that feather. She bit the inside of her cheek to stymie the flood of tears at her waterline because why was she about to cry?
His fingers lightly pressed against her chin, lifting her face to meet his own. “I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” Colin whispered it like a revelation unto himself.
“What?” she asked, breathless, her face tingling from the warmth of his gentle fingertips.
“Pen, I-I have to-”
Her heart pounded in her chest and her eyes went blurry as she watched him battle with himself. She could be patient; she had waited for a long time. She could wait a little while longer.
“Oh, Pen.” Colin released her chin and frantically patted at his pockets.
With resigned dread, she felt the slow descent of blood creep out of her nose towards her lip. “Shit,” she muttered, covering her face.
“I can get a tissue from my car or something,” he offered, his blue eyes wild as he looked around the empty lot.
Penelope’s face flamed with embarrassment and she turned around, opening her car. “It’s fine. I have some Kleenex in my car. I should go anyway, have to feed Charlotte.”
She ducked into the driver’s seat without another word, rooting around her glove box for something to stop the bleeding. Once she had tissue covering her face, she waved at Colin and pulled out of the parking lot in complete shame. Whatever hope she had of him feeling the same way dashed as quickly as her car had out onto the road.
—
“Okay, spill it.”
Penelope looked up from her takeout container and plunged her chopsticks into the rice. “What?”
Eloise sat across from her at the small, circular table in her kitchen as they shared dinner before turning on a documentary. Her best friend squinted at her and poked her chopsticks in the air. “You know what. You’ve been skittish all day today and avoided my brother like he carried a communicable disease. And listen, I’m not complaining—we spent more time together than we have in weeks, but I know it’s because something happened between you two and I want to know what it is so I can watch Class Action Park with a clear head, okay?”
Leave it to Eloise to cut right to the bone and continue eating as if nothing had happened. Penelope dropped her head into her hands and groaned. “It was so embarrassing!”
“What did you do?” she asked through a mouth full of soup dumplings.
She rolled her eyes, shame evident on her face. “So you know how I’ve been showing Colin all of the Jane Austen movies and adaptations that I love, right?”
“Ah hm.” She looked up to see Eloise’s mouth puffed out like a chipmunk as she gestured for Penelope to continue.
“Well, we were talking about her work as a whole the other day during closing and when we were next to my car, I swear I thought-” She paused and pointed at El. “You can’t gag, or laugh, or yell when I tell you this, promise?”
She only received a head nod and an eye roll in response.
“Well, I thought- and Colin has started quoting some overtly romantic Austen lines at me recently too which I don’t know if I can unpack right now, as well as a Colin Firth line which you know how I feel about him and that scene in the 1995 BBC-”
“Pen,” El interjected with knowing sympathy in her eyes. “Just tell me, it’s okay. I promise I’m on your side no matter what.”
She bit her lip and clenched her fists as she inhaled. “Fine. I think Colin was about to tell me that he likes me, and I got a nosebleed and I panicked and I drove away without really saying anything at all, and now I can’t even bear to look at him!”
Eloise blinked at her with a blank expression for a moment as Penelope exhaled and resumed eating her chicken and rice.
“That’s…certainly a development,” she responded.
“More like a complete regression.”
“Babe, why do you think Colin is doing all of this? Do you know he made the entire family watch the first season of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries after Sunday brunch last week? Ben wouldn’t shut up during the first episode and I swear Colin was going to throttle him. And he bought Hyacinth a special collectors’ set of Austen books in the hopes she’ll read them.”
Penelope took another bite of chicken and murmured sharply, “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries spawned an entire genre of YouTube classical retellings and are an iconic part of the Pride & Prejudice fandom, especially for younger fans.”
She heard Eloise let out a long-suffering sigh before placing her chopsticks across her takeout box. “Thanks for royally missing the point, Pen. I’m being serious—why do you think Colin is not only taking the time to watch these movies with you, but throwing himself into reading the books, watching and reading other adaptations even when you’re not around, memorizing whole passages that he made me and Fran listen to the other night?”
“Because he’s a good friend and takes an interest in his friends’ hobbies,” she offered, even if the excuse, however true, felt hollow on her tongue.
“Taking an interest in a friend’s hobby is offering to go to the driving range with them on their birthday, it’s not devoting all of your free time to it.”
Penelope knew Eloise was saying—even what she was implying—but she had spent the past few weeks so deeply confused and unsteady that considering a greater meaning was almost too much to handle. For the first two years of their friendship, Penelope had worked hard to tamp down her persistent and growing feelings for Colin, because she could never envision a world wherein those feelings would be reciprocated. But for the past couple of weeks, that glimmer of maybe tantalized her and cracked open those very same feelings she had long repressed. It hurt to consider that after running away with a nosebleed and a head hung in shame, he wouldn’t want her anymore—or that he hadn’t ever wanted her at all.
“What if he gets bored of me? What if we go out and I’m not what he thinks I am? What if we date and break up and I lose all of you? You say you’re always on my side, but when push comes to shove, he’s your brother!”
She felt a delicate hand reach across the table and give hers a squeeze. “Hey, that’s my sister you’re talking about; be nice to her. If Colin can’t see how lucky he would be to date you, well, then I’ll never be on his side.”
Penelope gave her a sad attempt at a smile. “It doesn’t matter—he’s hardly spoken to me since last week. I doubt anything will happen now.”
Eloise flashed her a look that said she knew more than she was letting on, but dropped the subject and the two finished their meal and watched their documentary as best friends, as sisters.
Sand flew from underneath his feet as Colin paced back and forth over the beach, muttering under his breath as he tried to remember what came next in his speech. He was vaguely aware of his best friend’s bemused stare, but refused to grant Phil the satisfaction of looking over to see his smirking face. They had been out here for at least an hour already and Penelope’s shift was dangerously close to being over; it was now or never.
Well, not never—that was dramatic, even for him.
Still, Colin knew that he needed to gather his courage and just tell her already, having wasted weeks now trying to convey his feelings through more subtle—or, rather, glaringly obvious to everybody but the girl of his dreams—methods, namely through their now-shared love of Jane Austen.
It had started with the simple delight of spending time with Pen, watching her watch her favorite movies, but in his efforts to impress his dearest friend, Colin had come to possess quite a fondness for the author and her various works.
Penelope had once told him about a one star review of Pride and Prejudice that read: Just a bunch of people going to each other’s houses. It had gone viral, purely because of how rooted it was in truth. He had laughed at the time, mostly because she had been so thoroughly tickled by it and her perfect giggle tended to draw out his own joy—really, he should have known much sooner that he loved her—but now that he’d read it himself, he could understand why she’d found it so silly and in turn, found her to be more endearing and lovely than ever.
That was the case for so many things, his Austen education providing him with so much insight into his Pen and the things that she held most dear that he had simply continued falling deeper and deeper into love with her over the last few weeks.
As she hadn’t seemed to catch on to what he believed to be quite clear attempts at wooing her, he had tried to tell her outright—granted, he had invoked the wise words of Fitzwilliam Darcy himself instead of his own—one night after work, only for her nose to start bleeding right there in the bookstore parking lot, sending her scurrying away from him in a scene that could have come straight from a modern retelling of Emma.
For the past week now, it seemed that she’d been avoiding him as he’d agonized over what to do; eventually, after having accepted that he was truly at a loss, Colin had recruited his sister and her boyfriend for help and they had come up with a plan. It was simple, really; he would just tell her—at the bookstore, of course—then take her down to the beach for a picnic, assuming she didn’t shut him down completely, that is.
When Eloise had called him last night after her own movie night with Pen, she told him that it was time to take action, promising to work his shift for him so he could gather everything he needed. Colin had, of course, immediately started panicking, giving himself twenty minutes to do so before pulling himself together as best he could. It was unfortunate that he’d had to wait all day for her to get off work, as he had spent all day losing confidence in the plan, but–
“Colin,” Phil called softly, breaking Colin from the spiral he’d found himself in, not for the first time today. He glanced toward his best friend, raising his brows. “Have you considered—I don’t know—just speaking from the heart when you talk to her?”
“Oh, huh, I guess it never crossed my mind,” Colin huffed sarcastically, throwing himself down into the sand. As unbothered as he always was, Phil chuckled and came to sit beside him and for a long moment, the two allowed the sound of the waves upon the shore to settle over them—it was grounding for Colin; it always had been. “I’m sorry, I just…well, she loves those books and movies so much and they all have basically the most romantic love declarations of all time. I don’t know how I could possibly measure up.”
“Well, maybe you just need to put on one of those long, flowing coats and a billowy pirate shirt if you think that’s what she wants.”
Colin knew Phil was teasing him, but he wouldn’t deny that the thought had crossed his mind. As though his friend possessed some kind of sixth sense for his tendency toward drama, Phil smacked him on the arm, not even bothering to look in his direction.
“That was a joke, Col! Just talk to her, dude.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” Phil deadpanned. “Go now, she’s been waiting for you.”
“She doesn’t get off for another five minutes,” Colin said, furrowing his brow as he checked his watch to make sure he wasn’t suddenly late. He couldn’t understand the bark of laughter that came from his friend but decided he didn’t have time to care, standing up and brushing the sand off himself. He waved goodbye to Phil and started making his way to the bookstore, running into his sister just after crossing the boardwalk to the little parking lot.
“She doesn’t suspect a thing,” Eloise told him, rolling her eyes while she adjusted the collar of his shirt that he’d kept nervously tugging at. She gave him a once-over, nodding to herself before her keen gaze met his again. “No more quotes, no more vague references—just Colin, like we talked about.”
Just Colin, he repeated over and over in his head as he jogged to his car to fetch the picnic basket, hoping that he and Pen would get to use it.
Colin climbed the steps to the front door of Danbury Books, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, letting the truth of the matter—the truth of them—wrap itself around him like a warm blanket. This was Penelope.
Penelope, who had brightened his world since the moment she’d come crashing into it.
Who had always seen to the very core of him.
Who had never once made him feel as though just Colin wasn’t enough.
Nor that he was too much.
For her, he was exactly right.
For her, he had always just been Colin.
Her friend.
Her confidant.
Her Colin, though she did not seem to know the extent to which that was true.
He wanted her to know, desperately.
He opened his eyes as he exhaled and nodded at his reflection in the glass before pushing open the door to the place that was all at once their past, their present, and their future—for as long as she wished for him to remain by her side; even as her friend, he had no plans to ever give her up.
His friend.
His confidante.
His Pen, he hoped—most ardently.
She glanced up from behind the register as the silver bell rang out, her plush pink lips immediately stretching into the most radiant smile and her baby blue eyes sparkling for him, and it was with a sudden burst of understanding that Colin realized what Phil had meant.
She’s been waiting for you.
Waiting, because she felt it, too.
Waiting, because she loved him, too.
Waiting, because she had figured it out long before him.
Of course, she had—she was Pen.
“Hey, Col,” her sweet voice floated over to him, grounding him the same way the waves had—the same way she always had.
“Hey, Pen,” he answered as he set the basket by the door and checked his watch to make sure the shop was now officially closed. After turning back to lock the door and flip the open sign around, Colin began to cross the room to the adorably confused redhead, biting back his grin at the sight of her crinkled nose and knitted brows.
“What are you doing?” she asked, peering up at him when he came to a stop only when he was close enough to reach out and wrap one of her auburn ringlets around his fingers. Her next word was barely more than a breath. “Colin?”
“I missed you today,” he whispered, watching her expression soften instantaneously as she nodded once.
“I missed you, too,” she whispered back. “It’s not the same here without you. No more taking days off without me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, honey,” Colin promised with a smile as he tucked her curl behind her ear and brushed his thumb over the rosy stain that had flooded her freckled, porcelain cheeks, relishing the slight hitch of her breath—the one she usually tried to hide from him, but not this time.
Taking a small step forward and tipping her chin back even further, Pen leaned into his palm, her brilliant blue gaze flitting over his face as she tried to figure him out. With nothing to hide himself, Colin tried to let every bit of the love he held for her radiate from him—hoping she could see it in his own blue eyes, in his smile, in his touch as he settled his other hand on her hip and rubbed circles into her softness with his thumb.
Because he was watching her just as closely as she was watching him, he saw the very moment that recognition flooded her delicate features and nodded.
She smiled up at him as her small hand lifted to cover his own, holding it in place so she could turn to the side and place a soft kiss to the center of his palm. When she met his gaze again, there was a twinkle in her eyes and she wiggled her brows—the way she always did whenever she was about to tease him.
“Your hands are cold,” she said, blinking up at him innocently.
Colin threw his head back laughing.
He loved her.
It was about time he told her so.
He rolled his eyes gently and dropped his hand to her other hip, pulling her closer to him and bending to press his forehead to hers. Penelope giggled as she held tight to his waist and nuzzled his nose with her own.
“I love you, Pen.”
“I love you too, Colin.”
And it was enough.